- Trump calls for DOJ investigation into Democratic calls for oversight
Source: Politico
“President Donald Trump on Saturday said he had ordered the Justice Department to look into ‘threats’ by Democrats against Republicans in the wake of the GOP’s midterm electoral defeat, adding that those responsible should be imprisoned. Across two Truth Social posts, Trump accused Democrats of threatening Republican donors with imprisonment and Attorney General Todd Blanche and other administration officials with impeachment. He also said Democrats were targeting people ‘just because they happen to be Republicans, or Republican supporters.'” (11/07/26)
- UK cannot “cherry pick” EU single market deal, Barnier tells BBC
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Michel Barnier, the EU’s former Brexit negotiator has warned that the UK cannot ‘cherry pick’ which elements of the single market to which it subscribes, after Andy Burnham said he wanted to explore closer economic ties with Europe. The prime minister has said rejoining the bloc’s internal market was among options he could pursue as part of a reshaping of ties since the UK’s exit from the EU nearly six years ago. But Michel Barnier told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that EU members would insist on the UK readopting certain conditions, such as the free movement of people, to gain access. He said there was not a ‘single market à la carte’ menu from which the UK could pick and choose what elements it wanted to adopt.” (11/07/26)
- Palestine: Israeli forces release Palestinian journalist Abou Shhadeh
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Israeli authorities have released Palestinian journalist Abed Abou Shhadeh after detaining him for five days without charge. Speaking after his release, Abou Shhadeh said on Sunday that his detention was part of ‘political measures’ intended not only for him ‘but to intimidate Arab society as a whole’. … Abou Shhadeh was held in a Shin Bet intelligence facility in Petah Tikva, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, after being detained on Tuesday on suspicion of ‘contact with a foreign agent’. He was suspected of receiving money from foreign sources in order to support Israel’s Arab voters, according to the legal rights group Adalah, which is part of his defence team.” (11/08/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/8/israeli-forces-release-palestinian-journalist-abou-shhadeh
- TN: Dolly Parton’s manager drops lawsuit against her nephew
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“The manager of the late country music star Dolly Parton has dropped a lawsuit against her nephew. The civil case was filed by the company that manages Parton’s business interests less than a month after her death. It included allegations of threats, intimidation and coercion against Bryan Seaver, the relative who publicly confirmed Parton had died in August. A temporary restraining order was also sought. Seaver, who previously served as Parton’s head of security, denied the allegations. In a statement to the BBC’s US partner, CBS News, Seaver’s attorneys said he was ‘grateful to put this misunderstanding behind him so that the family can grieve peacefully’.” (11/07/26)
- DOJ clears Fox’s $22 billion Roku acquisition after antitrust investigation
Source: United Press International
“The Justice Department closed its antitrust investigation into Fox Corp.’s $22 billion acquisition of streaming platform Roku after the media company agreed to measures aimed at protecting competing streaming services, officials said Friday. The decision allowed Fox to complete its acquisition of Roku, combining its television, news and sports operations with a streaming platform reaching more than 100 million households worldwide. Federal regulators had investigated whether the merger would reduce competition or allow Fox to favor its own programming over rival content on Roku devices. DOJ officials said its investigation found that competition from other streaming platforms would likely prevent the combined company from harming consumers.” (11/07/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/11/07/fox-roku-acquisition-DOJ/6881794094157/
- US offers $20m reward for information about Iran’s nuclear program
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“The US has announced a reward of up to $20 million for information about Iran’s nuclear programme. The State Department’s Rewards for Justice is also offering to potentially relocate the person who provides such details. President Donald Trump claimed last year that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been ‘completely and totally obliterated’ following a bombing campaign by the US and Israel. Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful and that it has no intention of developing a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, the US military says it is setting up a task force to enhance Washington’s efforts to restrict Iran’s movement of weapons and sanctioned material across its borders.” (11/07/26)
- Kenya: Cult leader sentenced to 200 years in prison over the deaths of 190 children
Source: CNN
“A Kenyan cult leader has been sentenced to 200 years in prison for the murder of 191 people, all but one of them children, in a campaign of abuse and forced fasting. Paul Mackenzie, founder of the Good News International Church, was sentenced Friday alongside more than two dozen others at the Mombasa High Court. Mackenzie preached that the world would end in August 2023 and that followers needed to fast in order to reach heaven. According to a Kenyan Senate report into the deaths, his teachings were based on ‘doomsday or end-times’ beliefs. Children were scheduled to die first, followed by young people and women. Men were expected to stay alive long enough to bury the bodies before dying.” (11/06/26)
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/11/06/africa/kenyan-cult-leader-sentenced-intl
- New Zealand: Unusually gloomy Kiwis deliver tightest election in years
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“New Zealand voted in a new government as fog choked the capital, Wellington, on Saturday – and the mood was as palpable as the grey weather. ‘It’s pretty flat,’ 21-year-old Imogen Vlutger says. ‘There’s this kind of apathy and a bit of dread.’ ‘Tired. I think we’re all tired,’ Symone, 28, admits. ‘I didn’t even vote,’ one man in his 40s sheepishly confesses. He couldn’t bring himself to tick any of the boxes, he explains, declining to chat further. ‘Wellington’s a bit of a bubble,’ another voter says, expressing a caveat I heard often, before describing feeling disillusioned. But polling shows this is a pervasive sentiment across the country: the national mood is low and faith in politics is even lower. More than half the country no longer sees it as a land of opportunity, a recent study found, while a similar portion fears that the future looks even worse.” (11/07/26)
- AK: Governor gives vote count update in “very close” Senate race
Source: The Hill
“Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) provided an update on the Last Frontier’s closely watched Senate race as vote counting continues in the state. ‘It’s very close,’ the Alaska Republican said in an interview with John Catsimatidis on WABC radio giving an update on what lies ahead in the process of counting votes. He said that there is a ‘big batch’ of votes coming in next week on Nov. 13, followed by a ‘smaller batch’ on Nov. 15. The final count will happen on Nov. 25. … The race has been neck-to-neck with Peltola taking a slight lead over the incumbent with a little over 48 percent of the votes, according to Decision Desk HQ. Sullivan, on the other hand, has secured 47.9 percent of votes with 70 percent of the expected votes counted.” (11/08/26)
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6206385-alaska-dunleavy-vote-update/
- Yemen: Houthis say at least 25 killed in Saudi air strike
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Media linked to the Houthi movement in Yemen say that at least 25 people, including women and children, have been killed in airstrikes by Saudi Arabia. There has been no comment from the Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognised government in Yemen. Live video footage on Al Masirah – a television station run by the Houthis – has shown rescuers pulling bodies out of the rubble of several buildings in al-Shariyah, a town to the east of the capital, Sanaa. The bodies of young children can be seen among those dug out from the ruins. The television station has also shown a number of injured people being carried on stretchers to hospital. Saba news agency, which is also run by the Houthis, said the attack was carried out by Saudi Arabia.” (11/07/26)
- South Africa: ANC faces coalition scramble after electoral rout as control of key metros slips away
Source: Daily Maverick [South Africa]
“The African National Congress (ANC) faces a difficult balancing act after suffering major losses in the 2026 local government elections: regrouping quickly to negotiate from a position of strength, while determining which parties to partner with to retain municipal influence. The party has been pushed out of the leading position in several key metropolitan councils, including Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, where the Democratic Alliance (DA) has emerged as the leading party. In eThekwini, the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party leads, while the ANC remains the top party in Buffalo City. Mangaung also faces tight contention, making securing a governing majority a tough task for the party. The results emphasise the scale of the ANC’s electoral setback and the challenge confronting its leadership as it prepares to enter coalition negotiations across the country.” (11/07/26)
- MS: Scott Colom & Black Mississippians on cusp of Senate history, as vote count stretches on
Source: SFGate
“Democrat Scott Colom hasn’t won Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race, but the local prosecutor was welcomed as a historic figure Friday as he strolled through the Farish Street business district where civil rights leaders once organized. ‘It’s so wonderful! It’s so wonderful to have Scott Colom as our representative,’ said Maati Jone Primm, who owns Marshall’s Music & Bookstore in Jackson. The state is still tallying ballots that could make Colom the first [b]lack senator from this Deep South state since post-Civil War Reconstruction. The possibility of Colom defeating Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith puts many [b]lack voters somewhere between cautious optimism and outright celebration in a state where nearly 40% of the population is [b]lack but the top representation for generations has been white.” (11/07/26)
- UFC’s Dana White says he will meet with Trump Monday over offer to be White House press secretary
Source: National Public Radio [US state media]
“President Donald Trump said Saturday that he has offered the job of White House press secretary to his friend and UFC boss Dana White, an announcement unconventional even for the norm-busting president. White said Saturday that he plans to meet with Trump on Monday at the White House. … White, who was in London on Saturday for a boxing event, was asked at a news conference about Trump’s post and responded by saying that he planned to fly to Washington right after and meet with Trump on Monday. When asked how he would balance the job with the current positions he has in the fighting world, White seemed confused by the question and then said, ‘Yeah, I got a lot of jobs already.'” (11/08/26)
https://www.npr.org/2026/11/08/nx-s1-6033900/ufc-dana-white-trump-white-house-press-secretary
- Italy: Foreign minister says hackers leaked his personal data
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani says he has been targeted by ‘cyber-criminals’ who published his personal data online because of his country’s support for Ukraine. ‘For days now, cyber-criminals have been publishing my personal data on the dark web and seeking further information, effectively exposing me to new threats and intimidation,’ Tajani wrote on X. He did not specify the nature of the threats, but said the hackers were also targeting his family. The dark web is a hidden part of the internet that is not indexed by common search engines and can only be accessed with specialist software. ‘Our position on Ukraine is the political reason I have been targeted,’ Tajani said.” (11/07/26)
- Paraguay: Pena under house arrest over bank crisis
Source: Deutsche Welle [German state media]
“Paraguay’s Senate on Friday impeached President Santiago Pena over a banking crisis that left millions of people unable to access their deposits. Senators voted overwhelmingly to remove Pena for misconduct in office. The move cleared the way for Vice President Pedro Alliana to succeed him. He will serve the rest of the presidential term, which ends in August 2028. Pena had already resigned on Thursday, but by impeaching and convicting him instead of accepting his resignation, senators stripped him of the lifetime Senate seat and immunity granted to former presidents, leaving him vulnerable to prosecution. Following the Senate vote, prosecutors ordered the arrest of the ousted president alongside former central bank chief Carlos Carvallo as part of a criminal investigation. Officials later said Pena was placed under house arrest pending a decision by the public prosecutor’s office on the final charges against him.” (11/07/26)
- NC: Man says ChatGPT helped his wife try to poison him
Source: SFGate
“On the morning of July 10, 2025, North Carolina resident James Gates suddenly became violently ill, he said. He said he was struck with abdominal pain, uncontrollable shaking and weakness and wasn’t able to leave his couch for nearly three days. But it wasn’t until a couple of months later that Gates suspected he had been poisoned, according to a lawsuit against ChatGPT maker OpenAI he filed in San Francisco County Superior Court on Oct. 14, which said that in September of last year he found a handwritten note referencing chemicals and dosage instructions, allegedly written by his estranged wife. The top of the note read ‘clear all convos’ and ‘log out of chat GPT’, Gates’ complaint alleged. The Charlotte District Attorney’s Office charged Cheryl Gates with attempted murder …. However, prosecutors dismissed all criminal charges in April due to insufficient evidence, Cheryl Gates said in a statement via her attorney Jennifer Tosi to SFGATE.” (11/06/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/chatgpt-poison-lawsuit-22517428.php
- Miller replaces Wiles as White House chief of staff
Source: Associated Press
“President Donald Trump said Friday that Stephen Miller was replacing Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff, installing as his closest adviser a loyal, combative bulldog for his ‘America First’ [sic] agenda as the president prepares to stare down a newly empowered Democratic Congress next year. Miller, long a member of Trump’s tight inner circle, is a key architect of the administration’s hard-line immigration policies. He is one of Trump’s longest-serving aides, joining his long-shot 2016 presidential campaign as a speechwriter. He most recently has served as White House deputy chief of staff for policy and oversees a broad portfolio, though he is best known for his role in Trump’s immigration policy.” (11/06/26)
https://apnews.com/article/susie-wiles-trump-miller-midterms-95690fe076f6bb8cfe2bf77435a1910d
- Faster, Pussycat! Annual Fundraiser!
Hey, everyone …
Today is NOT a “Firehose Friday” at the freedom movement’s daily newspaper — we’ve got full 60-item email/social media editions for you. But we also have EXTRA content (another 20+ news stories, opinion pieces, and audio/video links) for you here at the web edition.
Yesterday was a “zero-dollar day” in our annual fundraiser. Our total remains at $1,151.50.
Our goal is $5,503. Once we’ve raised the first half ($2,751.50), supporter GL has pledged to “match funds” for the other half. We’re $1,600 short of — only 41% of the way to — the goal.
This weekend, help us out with a “great leap forward” to the $1,500 mark. If we raise $348.50 between now and Monday, we’ll be at $1,500 (and 54% of the way home). So …
PLEASE SUPPORT RRND/FND!
… and then have a happy, healthy, and prosperous weekend!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily - Paraguay: President tries to quit, parliament insists on impeachment
Source: Brussels Signal [Belgium]
“Paraguay’s President has tried to resign over the collapse of a digital bank that left millions of depositors unable to reach their money. Lawmakers have refused to let him go. Santiago Peña announced his resignation yesterday in a video posted on social media. He said he was acting for the sake of the country’s stability, social peace and its democratic institutions, and apologised to Paraguayans for any failings on his part. Minutes later the Chamber of Deputies voted 78-0 to impeach him, sending the case to the Senate. It shelved a parallel motion against Vice President Pedro Alliana, who is next in line. A joint session of Congress called to accept the resignation then collapsed. … A president who steps down normally becomes a senator for life with immunity from prosecution, a status that removal from office would strip away.” (11/06/26)
- CA: Newsom commutes all of state’s death sentences
Source: NBC News
“Gov. Gavin Newsom commuted all California death sentences on Thursday, declaring that ‘state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with’ values in America’s most populous state. In an open letter to constituents, Newsom said taking this step is ‘among the most difficult of my career.’ ‘I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values,’ he said. California has not put a prisoner to death since Jan. 17, 2006 when Clarence Ray Allen was put to death via lethal injection.” (11/05/26)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-gov-gavin-newsom-commutes-death-sentences-rcna607727
- Israel Claims It Had Nothing To Do With Trump’s Decision To Attack Iran
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon is acting like it’s absurd for American voters to have gotten it into their heads that Israel had something to do with the Iran war that’s costing them so much money. Asked by i24 News about JD Vance’s observation that American voters want a change in their country’s relationship with the Zionist entity, Danon framed Israel as an innocent passive witness to the Trump administration’s unprovoked attack on Iran. ‘I think it’s unfortunate, and we saw it coming from different directions, that many made the linkage between the rising prices, mainly oil prices, to the situation here in Israel,’ said Danon, adding, ‘We know that the decision to attack Iran was the decision of the United States. It wasn’t our decision.'” (11/06/26)
- Civilization Is About Settling for Second-Best
Source: Persuasion
“[T]he two sets of governing principles in our society—liberalism for the state and capitalism for the economy—are second-best arrangements. In other words, they do not coincide with most people’s sense of what an ideal world would look like. (Just to be clear, they are not second-best in the real-world sense. In the real world, they are the best that we can hope to attain, at least for the foreseeable future. The problem is that they are second-best with respect to most people’s personal values and moral ideals. They are not à la hauteur de nos espérances. This is why people got so annoyed at Francis Fukuyama for declaring the end of history.’ (11/06/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/civilization-is-about-settling-foR
- DSA’s shoddy midterm performance shows voters want moderation, not socialism
Source: New York Post
by Rikki Schlott“Democrats just had a resounding midterm victory across the nation. But they’d be remiss to believe that the election results are an endorsement of the party’s creep to the far-left. Analysis of Tuesday’s results shows that progressive and DSA-adjacent Democrats actually underperformed relative to their more moderate peers. That’s true across the country, with no major exceptions. Voters who came out for Democrats in the midterms are sending a very specific message: they want moderation, not radical DSA craziness. Hopefully Mamdani and AOC won’t take the “blue tsunami” as permission to pursue their most extreme political dreams. ‘It’s very hard to find a race with a high-profile progressive who is not underperforming in this election,’ New York Times Political Analyst Nate Cohn said in a Thursday episode of The Daily.” (11/06/26)
- Trump must end the war today and fire all top officials connected to it
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Joe Kent“For the last eight months, the Iran war has been a topic of fierce debate: is the war in our national interest? Was Iran an imminent threat? Should we stay the course or escalate? … The American people settled the debate. It’s time to end the war in Iran. This is irrefutable, as Vice President Vance has admitted. Over 70% of voters blamed the Iran war and our off balanced relationship with Israel for the out of control inflation that affects their daily lives and have zero tolerance for more wars of choice. With this clear message from the American people, Trump must immediately end the war – today.” (11/06/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-ending-war-elections/
- We Can Save Ourselves From Nuclear Annihilation
Source: Common Dreams
by Peter Kuznick & Ivana Nikolić Hughes“The 1984 British movie ‘Threads’ opens with ordinary scenes in Sheffield, England, where a young couple learns they are expecting a baby. Their personal story intertwines with news of a growing conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, centered on Iran. We next learn that a nuclear weapon is used in an attack, followed by another. Before long, Sheffield itself is the site of hydrogen bomb detonations, with our protagonists either perishing in the explosions or subsisting under devastating conditions of starvation, civil unrest, radiation-induced and infectious diseases, and freezing temperatures over the coming days, weeks, months, and years. The film ends with the 13-year-old daughter of the young couple from the start of the film giving birth to a deformed clump of flesh months after being raped in a lawless and collapsed society.” (11/07/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/save-ourselves-from-nukes
- After the Midterms, It’s Ideological Trigonometry for the Democrats
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson“The Democrats elected in 1974 were elected to punish Republicans for the crimes of Richard Nixon. But some of them thought that the post-Watergate world was a wide-open ideological field in which they had decades to frolic. Six years later, Ronald Reagan won the presidency, and four years after that, he was reelected in a 49-state landslide (recount Minnesota!) with nearly 60 percent of the total vote nationwide. The lesson for the take-out-the-trash Democrats of 2026: A political moment is not the same thing as a political trend.” (11/06/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/midterms-democrats-idological-trigonometry/
- US Democrats, please take note: peace is good politics
Source: Asia Times
by Jeffrey D Sachs“Voters across the United States were loud and clear on Tuesday in their historic drubbing of Trumpism. The election was a decisive rejection of Trump’s war on Iran and its staggering costs at home. While savoring their victory and the historic opportunity to restore America’s constitutional order, the Democrats should take the anti-war message of the election to heart, because they suffered the same verdict two years ago, when voters rejected the Biden administration’s wars in Ukraine and Gaza.” (11/06/26)
https://asiatimes.com/2026/11/us-democrats-please-take-note-peace-is-good-politics/
- Resign, Mr President
Source: The Weekly Dish
by Andrew Sullivan“You have hurt your allies more than your foes. You’ve discredited the religious right more thoroughly than Jimmy Swaggart ever could. You gave the neocons the kiss of death, destroyed the Israel alliance, while presiding over a wave of foul antisemitism — right and left. You made fools of those earnestly trying to build a new right-of-center coalition. The National Conservatives and the post-liberals and the Claremonsters and the AIPAC loonies all tried to find some string of policy coherence, and today? Well, they all look like idiots, and some of them are figuring that out. There is no coherent thread that connects the past ten years except your ego, stupidity, and cruelty. And deep down, you know it.” (11/06/26)
- Late-Night Comedy or DNC Propaganda
Source: American Greatness
by Christian Toto“Come back, Johnny Carson! Late-night TV no longer resembles the laughs-first model perfected by The Tonight Show legend and, later, Jay Leno. It’s all about pushing progressive talking points, often shoving comedy to the exits. A new study by the conservative NewsBusters highlights just how imbalanced late-night television has become in the Age of Kimmel. The study found that 87 percent of jokes that targeted senatorial candidates drew satirical blood against Republicans. The time period? Peak campaign season: September 8 through October 29. That’s no accident. Meanwhile, Democrats running for the Senate endured just seven jokes in toto.” (11/06/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/11/06/late-night-comedy-or-dnc-propaganda/
- When the Watchdogs Are Silenced: India’s Crackdown on Those Documenting Online Censorship
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Jillian C York“On November 3, our colleagues at the Software Freedom Law Center, India (SFLC.in) received notifications from X that the Delhi Police had issued takedown requests targeting 42 URLs. Among the accounts and posts targeted were those belonging to SFLC.in, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), and X account @geoblockedindia, as well as posts documenting legal notices and instances of online censorship. Takedown requests targeting SFLC.in and other digital rights groups threaten not only their work, but the public’s ability to know when and how online speech is being restricted.” (11/06/26)
- Your smartphone will set you free. That’s the problem.
Source: Washington Post
by August Lamm“A common complaint from recent dumbphone converts is that the switch has made them more reliant on others. Without a smartphone, it becomes necessary to ask for directions, weather, transit times and other information that was once easily accessed online. But why is interdependence a bad thing? In the depths of what has been dubbed a ‘loneliness epidemic,’ with friendship rates at an all-time low and screen time at an all-time high, the solution is not to become more self-reliant but to reinforce our social fabric through shared responsibility. I have lived without a smartphone for the past four years, and in that time I have grown comfortable depending on friends and even strangers to help me navigate an increasingly digital world.” (11/08/26)
- Republicans’ Midterm Wipeout Reignites the War Over Tariffs
Source: Washington Sun
by Jeff Stein“Trump’s tariff embrace has represented a revolution within the Republican Party. But even when skeptical, GOP lawmakers have begrudgingly gone along with the president for much of the last decade, wary of crossing the most popular figure in their party on one of his top priorities. Other Republicans came to agree with the president that insulating American firms from international competition could help rebuild domestic industry. Traditional conservatives are now optimistic that the party’s midterm catastrophe will mark the end of that era. A CNBC poll found 64% of voters believed Trump’s tariffs hurt their local economy, whereas just 14% said it helped. A Wall Street Journal analysis of AdImpact data also found Republicans spent $0 this campaign cycle on tariffs, either for or against. Democrats devoted $58.3 million to bashing the Trump policy.” (11/06/26)
- What’s a Rich Man to Do?
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“Just because someone is the CEO of a major corporation does not mean that he advocates a free society—even when he makes millions of dollars a year.” (11/06/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/whats-a-rich-man-to-do/
- Trump Failed to MAGA
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“When Trump won the presidency in 2024, there were high hopes among his MAGA supporters that this time around, he would succeed in MAGA. They looked on him as the man on the white horse — the man who, if given free rein, would restore America to greatness. In fact, for the past two years, Trump has enjoyed extraordinary freedom to do pretty much whatever he wants. … None of this proclivity toward dictatorial power has made America great again, unless, of course, one defines ‘greatness’ as living under a powerful, tyrannical welfare-warfare state rather than in a free, peaceful, prosperous society characterized by a limited-government republic.” (11/06/26)
- Corporations Are Pretending to Reform Themselves
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen“While everyone was refreshing early election returns and exit polls and turnout models on Tuesday, something very unusual happened: A monopolist broke itself up. Health conglomerate CVS, the seventh-largest U.S. company by revenue, decided to split off its consumer-facing in-store and mail-order pharmacy business from its Aetna insurance and Caremark pharmacy benefit management (PBM) side. When asked about it on CNBC, CVS chair and CEO David Joyner said that government regulatory pressure played a role. ‘What you see in the regulatory environment is clearly one of the things that we need to make sure we’re navigating,’ Joyner said. This is not, however, an unalloyed victory over the forces of capital—and if you dig into the fine print, it’s not much of a victory at all.” (11/06/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/11/06/corporations-are-pretending-to-reform-themselves/
- The New Congress and Ukraine
Source: The Next Move
by Jay Nordlinger“Remember the Ukrainians, and their daily acts of heroism.” (11/06/26)
- America Did Not Vote for Woke 2.0
Source: Reason
by Eric Boehm“Voters don’t want far-left policies. They just really, really hate Republican ones.” (11/06/26)
https://reason.com/2026/11/06/america-did-not-vote-for-woke-2-0/
- America’s Backlash Against Oligarchy
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman“The midterm result was a tale of many backlashes. There was the backlash of erstwhile Trump voters, particularly young white males, against high gasoline prices and the Iran War. There was the backlash of Hispanic voters against ICE and Trump’s horrific deportation policy. There was the backlash of Black voters against Republicans’ gerrymandering to negate their votes and Trump’s open racism. There was the backlash of women against the destruction of abortion rights and suppression of the Epstein files. There was a backlash of ordinary families against the loss of healthcare coverage. There was a general backlash against Trump’s bottomless corruption and lies. And there was a backlash of patriotic Americans against Trump’s bromance with Putin. Yet one of the most stunning blows was against the class of oligarchs, whom voters reasonably believe have been major enablers Trump and the Republicans, allowing them to inflict significant economic, social and strategic harm the country.” (11/06/26)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/americas-backlash-against-oligarchy
- A New Factory Isn’t Necessarily a Sign of Growth
Source: Independent Institute
by Randy Simmons & Diana W Thomas“In 1989 The Economist described a Soviet bus factory whose workers took sledgehammers to newly manufactured trucks. The bus factory needed only the truck chassis, but government rules required the truck factory to supply the whole vehicle, most of which the bus makers would destroy. Complying with the rules meant producing things only to smash them. The workers and managers understood the waste, but changing government standards was harder than dismantling trucks. Individually sensible responses to political directives produced collectively senseless results. Keep that factory in mind when considering Audi’s proposed $4-billion assembly plant in Georgia.” (11/06/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/11/06/new-factory-isnt-necessarily-sign-of-growth/
- Facebook as Scapegoat
Source: Law & Liberty
by Valerie Pavilonis“Was there ever a ‘Social Reckoning?'” (11/06/26)
- The Brilliant but Neglected Novels of Garet Garrett
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jeffrey A Tucker“One of the best nonfiction books to appear following the onset of the Great Depression was by the financial journalist Garet Garrett (1878–1954). It is called A Bubble That Broke the World (1931), and it was a bestseller. His analysis was exactly right. This was not a crisis of capitalism, he wrote, but of postwar credit expansions and imbalances. The economic downturn represented the coming due of the bill, and a cry for rebalancing production, consumption, savings, and interest rates in the US and all over the industrialized world. If Garrett is known at all today, it is by those who are captivated by the handful of intellectuals who wrote in opposition to the New Deal planning state and the regimentation of national life that it brought about. They were a rare breed, and largely forgotten. Aside from that, there is much more to Garrett than people know.” (11/06/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-brilliant-but-neglected-novels-of-garet-garrett/
- Time for Supreme Court to fix “race neutral” discrimination
Source: Fox News
by Steven D Anderson“The Supreme Court has made clear that racial discrimination has no place in public school admissions. But when schools hide discrimination behind ‘race-neutral policies’, lower courts have let them get away with it — as long as the targeted racial group isn’t hurt too much. On Oct. 19, the court agreed to hear a case brought by parents in Montgomery County, Md., challenging an admissions policy designed to reduce Asian American enrollment at the county’s magnet middle schools. At stake is a fundamental question: Does the Constitution protect students as individuals, or do their rights depend on how others of their race perform? With this case, the Supreme Court could reverse a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals precedent that Justice Alito once called ‘flagrantly wrong’ and ‘a virus that may spread if not promptly eliminated’.” (11/06/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/steven-d-anderson-time-supreme-court-fix-race-neutral-discrimination
- The French Revolt Against Fiscal Reality
Source: The Daily Economy
by Paul Mueller“France is the canary in Europe’s debt coal mine. Voters resist spending restraint even as the cost of postponing reform grows.” (11/06/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-french-revolt-against-fiscal-reality/
- Congress Can Now Put a Stop to Trump’s Architectural Narcissism
Source: The UnPopulist
by Gabriel Schoenfeld“Numismatic egomania aside, the ballroom and the arch are exercises in grandiosity and vulgarity, monuments to Trump’s fragile ego, excrescences on the face of the nation’s capital city. Shubow professes to defend aesthetic standards—except, apparently, when the patron is Donald Trump. Trump may aspire to be a strongman, but he is no Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un, let alone a Hitler or a Stalin. He is an aged lame-duck president who, belying his pretensions to strength, frequently drifts off to sleep in front of television cameras. The new Democratic-controlled Congress should halt the bulldozers and cranes in their tracks and begin restoring what Trump has taken without the public’s consent.” (11/06/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/congress-can-now-put-a-stop-to-trumps
- Sumner against Populism
Source: Free Assocation
by Sheldon Richman“No one needs reminding that populism is fashionable. That might sound good to opponents of elitist authoritarianism, but it is not good. That’s not to say the latter is attractive to liberty-loving individualists who cherish the pursuit of happiness through, among other voluntary institutions, the marketplace. Not a whit. Yale Professor William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) would agree. Yet the remarkable classical-liberal sociologist insisted that populism would provide no relief whatsoever from government oppression.” (11/06/26)
https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-sumner-against-populism
- Laughing Matters
Source: Law & Liberty
by John G Grove“Norm [Macdonald] was extremely intelligent, even though his comedic approach often entailed playing the ‘dumb guy.’ He was also deeply introspective. He suffered from bowel cancer in his twenties and thought often about death, faith, and the human condition in the postmodern world. He was a devoted reader of great literature, especially Tolstoy. And of course, for over his last eight years, he waged his courageous battle with leukemia without telling anyone outside his immediate family and agent. He was a joke maker who was very familiar with the deeper questions of human life. But like most good comedians, he wasn’t out there to show off his own smarts. His intelligence manifested in his ability to puncture the stupidity around him—usually not by straightforward mocking, but by subversion.” (11/06/26)
- Ranking the Best (and Worst) Democratic Senate Candidates
Source: Washington Monthly
by Bill Scher“Some of the strongest overperformers had experience in the clergy and health care, not politics.” (11/06/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/11/06/ranking-the-best-and-worst-democratic-senate-candidates/
- Off the Rails
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler“On October 28, 69 people were killed in a train crash in the Toledo province of central Spain. The collision occurred on the high-speed line connecting Madrid with the southwestern city of Seville, just one month before a general election on November 29. It is the second disaster on the Madrid–Seville corridor this year, after a crash near Córdoba in the south in January killed 46 people. Due to its timing, the Toledo collision is likely to be even more politically contentious than the last, further diminishing Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s chances of reelection. Both tragedies suggest that a once cutting-edge rail network is now showing its age—and that successive Spanish governments have failed to invest in its maintenance.” (11/06/26)
- The Class War Midterms
Source: In These Times
by Miles Kampf-Lassin“The day after the Nov. 3 midterm elections, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) released a video that encapsulated the left electoral movement he helped bring to life. Set to David Bowie’s iconic song ’Starman’, the video shows Sanders clasping hands with many of the candidates he endorsed this cycle. Not only did Sens.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-MI), James Talarico (D-TX), Troy Jackson (D-ME) and Peggy Flanagan (D-MN) (along with more than 50 U.S. House and down-ballot victors backed by Sanders) win their races, they were instrumental in delivering Democrats’ sweeping tidal wave in this year’s midterms. Far more than just a flex, the video served as a reminder of how deeply Sanders — the iconoclast democratic socialist leader — has transformed U.S. politics over the past decade.” (11/06/26)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/midterms-election-democrats-bernie-sanders-democratic-socialism
- For the Democrats, now comes the hard part
Source: Noahpinion
by Noah Smith“The Dems have to figure out what they stand for, and what they want to do.” (11/06/26)
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/for-the-democrats-now-comes-the-hard
- A Billion Dollars and the Men Who Ran Israel’s Wars
Source: Antiwar.com
by Thomas S Karat“The weapons a country fights with, the software that aims them, and the officers who command them were for a century things a state owned and could not put up for sale. That arrangement is coming apart. One by one these assets are being bought by private companies, financed through public stock markets, and traded like any other holding, and the firm that has carried the process furthest spent most of its life making radios for freight trains.” (11/06/26)
- The Boogeyman Ballot
Source: Libertarian Party
by Rob Yates“Two tribes, one reflex. When we are frightened, the person who chooses differently stops being a neighbor and becomes the threat. Every uniparty election campaign in America is built to harvest it. Politics learned the curfew lesson long ago. Fear travels faster than facts, and every cycle brings a new creature under the bed with a party beside it holding a flashlight and a donation link.” (11/05/26)
- We Don’t Need Politicians to Make it So
Source: Garrison Center
by Joel Schlosberg“The ultimate testament to [Patrick] Stewart’s acting skill is that he made it hard not to suspend disbelief, one hour at a time, in what [Ryan] Zickgraf calls ‘authority with authoritarianism apparently filtered out.’ In the real world, we have what we need to exclude authoritarians from getting in the way of getting things done.” (11/05/26)
- The Rule of Law Will Sometimes Be Unjust. Defend It Anyway.
Source: Liberalism.org
by Michael Burger“Rules of law can never always produce justice. That’s because life really is complicated. The facts that pertain to doing true justice are unpredictable. Inevitably, even the best-designed rules of law will sometimes get it wrong, with unjust results. When that happens, the law will be an ass. So in a perfectly just world we need sometimes to ignore rules of law. We need a government, or at least agents of government (in other words, judges) who will take into account all of the truly pertinent facts, not just the facts that rules of law say are pertinent. We need a government, in other words, that is not bound by the law, to really deliver justice in a way that the law cannot. Now medieval intellectuals had a term for a ruler unbound by law: a tyrant.” (11/05/26)
https://liberalism.org/essays/the-rule-of-law-will-sometimes-be-unjust-defend-it-anyway
- Hungary’s Lesson: Beware the Dangers of Socialism
Source: The American Conservative
by Doug Bandow“With ever more Americans bizarrely rating ‘socialism’ favorably today, we should remember the high price paid by Hungarians to escape real socialism. Hungary’s tortured history reminds us of the fragility of liberty. Tragically, the Hungarian people lost their battle for freedom 70 years ago. However, their loss planted seeds for the ultimate destruction of Moscow’s satellite system and Europe’s liberation from communism.” (11/05/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/hungarys-lesson-beware-the-dangers-of-socialism/
- Pink Flame of Liberty, 11/07/26
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“Ponty’s Reporting on LNC Data Beach: Did Andy Buchovitch SCAPEGOAT Mises Caucus opponents?” (11/07/260
- The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan, 11/06/26
Source: The Weekly Dish
“Michael Barone On The Midterm Results.” (11/06/26)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/michael-barone-on-the-midterm-results
- Rising, 11/06/26
Source: The Hill
“Lindsey Granger gives her lens on Jon Stewart suggesting that Sen. Chuck Schumer should not be the Senate majority leader now that Democrats have control of the Senate.” (11/06/26)
- Checks & Balances, 11/06/26
Source: Checks & Balances
“He Left Trump’s FBI. Now He’s Speaking Out.” (11/06/26)
https://chkbal.substack.com/p/he-left-the-trumps-fbi-now-hes-speaking
- The Political Orphanage, 11/06/26
Source: The Political Orphanage
“How to Talk to Your Neoliberal Shill.” (11/06/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/how-to-talk-to-your-neoliberal-shill
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 11/06/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Shivs Hegseth in Strange Aside as GOP Knives Come Out Big Time.” (11/06/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/217676/trump-shivs-hegseth-strange-aside-gop-knives-come-big-time
- Anarcho Agenda, episode 153
Source: Anarcho Agenda
“The red blue fight is a waste of time.” (11/06/26)
https://anarchoagenda.libsyn.com/ep-153-the-red-blue-fight-is-a-waste-of-time
- System Update, 11/06/26
Source: Glenn Greenwald
“EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Flavio Bolsonaro on Leaving Brazil, Lula & More.” (11/06/26)
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/exclusive-interview-with-flavio-bolsonaro
- The Permanent Problem, episode 22
Source: Niskanen Center
“Fragile neighborhoods and spiritual poverty, with Seth Kaplan.” (11/06/26)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/fragile-neighborhoods-and-spiritual-poverty-with-seth-kaplan
- CounterPunch Radio, 11/06/26
Source: CounterPunch
“Wired to Steal w/ Yoav Litvin and Ilan Pappé.” (11/06/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/11/06/wired-to-steal-w-yoav-litvin-and-ilan-pappe/
- Freakonomics Radio, episode 694
Source: Freakonomics
“Does Democracy Really Need Elections?” (11/06/26)
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-democracy-really-need-elections/
- The Dispatch Podcast, 11/06/26
Source: The Dispatch
“An Extinction-Level Event for MAGA.” (11/06/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/dispatch-podcast/an-extinction-level-event-for-maga/
- The Anarchist Experience, episode 605
Source: The Anarchist Experience
“Rich and Riley talk about the Blue Wave, national and local, and this HEADLINE: World’s largest crypto exchange hit by cyberattack.” (11/06/26)
https://theanarchistexperience.wordpress.com/2026/11/06/the-anarchist-experience-605/
- The Tom Woods Show, episode 2811
Source: The Tom Woods Show
“How Britain Became Poorer Than Mississippi.” (11/06/26)
https://tomwoods.com/ep-2811-how-britain-became-poorer-than-mississippi/
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 11/06/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“The Iran War Sank Trump & The Republicans — More War Will Make It Even Worse.” (11/06/26)
- Underthrow Podcast, 11/05/26
Source: Underthrow
“Think Outside the Ballot Box.” (11/05/26)
- Rising, 11/05/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar looking at how some Democrat proposals, like the billionaires tax in California, were rejected by voters despite the party making massive gains in the midterms.” (11/05/26)
- Nonzero, 11/05/26
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“The Age of Imperialist Realism | Robert Wright & Daniel Bessner.” (11/05/26)
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 11/05/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Trump Says He May Destroy the Entire Country of Iran, US Ramps Up Sanctions on Cuba, and More.” (11/05/26)
- The Kyle Anzalone Show, 11/05/26
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Iran Achieved One of Its Core Objectives, A Political Defeat for President Trump.” (11/05/26)